Comets Top Blast

One night after their comeback attempt in Cedar Rapids fell just short, the Kansas City Comets returned home to face the defending MASL champion Baltimore Blast. In their first home game since the shutout against the Chicago Mustangs last weekend, the Comets kept up the defensive performance at home allowing just a single goal to the Blast in a 5-1 win on Sunday evening.

The first quarter was an extremely tight affair between the two, which has become a standard practice for games between the two. Both sides had their chances, with both goalkeepers coming up with good saves as the first quarter ended scoreless.

The second quarter is where the Comets did most of their damage against the defending champs, as Odaine Sinclair scored two and a half minutes into the quarter off an assist from Leo Gibson, one timing a rolling shot into the far corner to make it 1-0. A thirty second span at the midpoint of the quarter provided as much offense as the rest of the game combined. At the midpoint of the quarter Gibson fired a shot from distance off the bottom of the post and past William Vanzela into the net to make it 2-0 Comets. KC made it 3-0 22 seconds later as Stefan Stokic was the first to react to his own rebound after a save by Vanzela. Stokic rolled his second shot under the Baltimore goalkeeper to add to the Comets lead. Eight seconds later the Blast got on the board though as Jonatas Melo beat Stephen Patterson for the first time in about a game and a half to put the Blast within two goals. Before the quarter was over though the Comets had put their lead back to three goals as Guerrero Pino scored off a Ramone Palmer assist to have the Comets go into the break up 4-1.

The second half became another clinic in defensive play from both teams as neither side was able to find the back of the net in the third quarter. In fact in the second half there was only a single goal scored by either side and it came with less than a minute remaining by the Comets against the Blast's sixth attacker as they looked to get back into the game. Gibson picked out Stokic who scored his second goal of the game against the sixth attacker and sealed the win for the Comets 5-1. Kansas City will travel down to Florida next weekend for a game against the expansion Florida Tropics.